Whooping cough (pertussis) is a respiratory infection of which the predominant symptom is coughing, and is caused by the infection of Bordetella pertussis or Bordetella parapertussis. Patients suffer from coughing spasms over a prolonged period (two weeks to several months). Since a large proportion of whooping cough cases are caused by B. pertussis, vaccines have been developed targeting B. pertussis, and with the current wide circulation of effective and safe vaccines, the number of whooping cough patients and the number of deaths have both greatly decreased.
B. parapertussis and B. pertussis belong to the genus Bordetella, and are both aerobic bacteria whose host is human. The virulence factors (adenylate cyclase toxin, necrosis toxin, tracheal cytotoxin, filamentous hemagglutinin, and such) produced by both bacteria are highly homologous and their mechanisms of pathogenesis are considered to be almost the same. They have similar auxotrophy and their optimum culture conditions are also almost the same. A difference between the two bacteria is seen in the production of pertussis toxin (produced only by B. pertussis), and this may be related to the predominant prevalence of B. pertussis. 
According to recent research, whooping cough caused by B. parapertussis infection is not very different in seriousness from that caused by B. pertussis, and is also widely spread throughout the world. On the other hand, despite the very high homology between B. parapertussis and B. pertussis, current pertussis vaccines (produced from B. pertussis) have been found to have little or no effect on B. parapertussis (Non-Patent Documents 1 to 3). Furthermore, there are reports that while natural immunity acquired through cure of the infection causes cross-reactions, the existing vaccines do not provide cross-protection against both bacteria (Non-Patent Documents 3 to 5). These results strongly indicate that if the increasing control of B. pertussis using the existing vaccines results in the decrease of B. pertussis distributed in nature, this may increase the prevalence of B. parapertussis. 
At present, studies have been done on whooping cough vaccines produced using a mutant Bordetella strain as immunogen (Patent Document 1), vaccines related to pertactin, which is an outer membrane protein expressed by B. parapertussis (Patent Document 2), and such. However, their actual effects on whooping cough caused by B. parapertussis are unclear, and there are no known vaccines that may provide effective protection against whooping cough caused by B. parapertussis infection. Furthermore, it is difficult to run an evaluation system for vaccines effective for B. parapertussis, which has not been successful so far.
Moreover, as is evident from the fact that development of novel whole-cell vaccines has ended up in failure for many pathogens such as Shigella, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Neisseria meningitidis, and malaria, it is very difficult to develop and produce an effective whole-cell B. parapertussis vaccine (Non-Patent Document 6).
Accordingly, there is a demand for the development of vaccines that may effectively regulate the activity of B. parapertussis. 
Prior art documents related to the present invention are shown below.    [Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent No. 2655583    [Patent Document 2] Japanese Patent Application Kohyo Publication No. (JP-A) 2003-533990 (unexamined Japanese national phase publication corresponding to a non-Japanese international publication    [Non-Patent Document 1] Liese, J. G. et al. Arch Dis Chid 88(8): 684-687, 2003    [Non-Patent Document 2] Mastrantonio, P. et al. Dev Biol Stand 89: 255-259, 1997    [Non-Patent Document 3] Watanabe, M. and Nagai, M. Expert Rev Anti-infect Ther 2(3): 447-454, 2004    [Non-Patent Document 4] Khelef, N. et al. Infect Immun 61(2): 486-490, 1993    [Non-Patent Document 5] Watanabe, M. and Nagai, M. Infect Immun 69(11): 6981-6986, 2001    [Non-Patent Document 6] Griffiths, E. In Pathogenesis and Immunity in Pertussis. P. 354-355. 1988